**3. Synbiotics**

Synbiotics is a term used for the combined use of probiotics and prebiotics to achieve a more efficient impact on the gut microbiota [34]. This concept surfaced in order to tackle possible difficulty of the probiotics to establish itself in the gut. In this case, prebiotics and probiotics are co-administered in order to improve the growth/relative abundance and establishment of probiotics in the gastrointestinal tract of its host. The probiotic strains used in conjunction with prebiotics include Lactobacilli and Bifidobacilli, while the prebiotics used along with probiotic strains include inulin, galactooligosaccharide, and fructooligosaccharide. The combination of probiotics and prebiotics in therapy helps to give stability to the gut microbiota, which translates to overall health of the host's gut and the host in general. This combination also helps to enhance antimicrobial activity, and the combined effect includes; competition with the pathogen for adherence sites, production of metabolites that are toxic to the pathogens, production of compounds that degrade toxins produced by the pathogens, obstruction of attachment sites and toxin receptors, and modulation of the immune system to respond effectively to pathogen invasion [35].
